I’ve had the joy of switching over the regular web fonts I have been using on this site to the magnificent Proxima Nova. I’ve played around with several other fonts but thought Proxima Nova looked the best.  Of course I’ll probably change it up in the future but that’s what I’m using now.

I’ve also been using Typekit for a client as well as on some personal websites.  You can see Proxima Nova at work on Midwest Heavy Haul’s website.  They offer Heavy Haul services throughout the Midwest and I thought Proxima Nova worked well here too.  I’m really not sure what it wouldn’t work on.

Midwestheavyhaul.com using Proxima Nova from Typekit

I’ve also been using it on WP Switch, which is a new site of mine that I recently bought. Still needs some work, but boy does it look better than it did.

I wish I had more time to implement Typekit across a few more of my sites but I’m going to wait to do full redesigns.

Typekit is a dream to work with and is super easy to implement if you haven’t tried it yet.  Go sign up if you haven’t!

Webdesign tutsplus

In depth articles and tutorials on web design. From basic to advanced.

Nettuts+

Variety of web development tutorials. CMSs, html, css, PHP, Javascript, Ajax and more.

Activetuts+

Flash, Flex and Actionscript tutorials.

W3Schools

Free tutorials in all web development technologies.

Tutorialized

Photoshop, flash, css, html and more.

Good-Tutorials

CSS, flash, html, Javascript, PHP, Ruby on Rails + +

Learning jQuery

jQuery tutorials

CSS Tutorial

CSS step by step.

HTML dog

html/ xhtml and css.

Tutorial blog

Variety of tutorials related to web design, graphic design, writing and many more topics.

Abduzeedo

Graphic design blog that occasionally has some high quality tutorials, mainly Photoshop ones.

Sixrevisions

Graphic design blog with strong focus on everything related to web design. Occasional high quality tutorials.

Smashing magazine

High quality articles and tutorials related to graphic and web design.

Tutorial9

Tutorials on Photoshop, web/blogging and photography. Also freebies.

Grafpedia

Photoshop tutorials.

Layers Magazine

Creative Suite tutorials. (Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver ++)

PSD tutsplus

High quality Photoshop tutorials. Beginner to advanced.

HV designs

Tutorials on Photoshop, coding, WordPress, jQuery and more.

Web Design Fan

Various web design related articles and tutorials.

Themelab

WordPress tutorials (and themes).

Line 25

Html, CSS, Photoshop and more.

PSDfan

Photoshop resources, PSD’s and tutorials.

Desizn Tech

CSS, Photoshop, PHP ++.

Webmonkey

Web developer’s resource.

WP Recipes

WordPress how-tos and tutorials.

Web design library

Web design basics, Photoshop, Flash, html, css, web programming and many resources.

This is a list of HTML photography website templates that you can use for your photography website.

Galleria Template

Galleria is a very clean and professional looking HTML template for photographers.  Show off your work with this easy to customize and fully featured HTML template. You get a detailed help file with additional options like choosing between 2 different javascript galleries and 12 color schemes.

Galleria Features:

• Two easy-to-use javascript gallery’s
• Working PHP contact form
• 12 color schemes with editable PSD files
• 960.gs grid based design
• PHP template files included

Photoworks Photography Template

Photoworks is a modern web 2.0 style html site template for photography or portfolio websites. This theme has a dark color scheme.

• Best for Photography, Photographer, Portfolio, Photo Gallery
• Valid XHTML Strict and CSS
• jQuery Flow (jFlow)
• Lytebox (lightbox)
• jQuery Lightbox
• Image Slideshow
• Dropdown Menu
• Main Page, About Page, Services Page, Portfolio Page
• Ajax Contact Form
• Documentation and PSDs Included

Photon Photo Showcase Template

The Photon site template simulates a flash gallery. Everything is loaded via ajax. Photon includes a working contact form and a page template that fits any resolution. The perfect template to show off your photographs and images.

• Everything is loaded via ajax
• AJAX contact form
• Multiple Albums & Pages
• Different description possible for each photo
• 2 different color schemes

360 Photos – Full Background Template

360Photos is a clean and minimalistic template including a Jquery powered fullscreen slideshow. The layout is based on the 960 grid framework.

The background can be a single photo or a slideshow controlled by the left sliding panel. It resizes automatically, no matter the size of the browser window. You can add as many images as you want.

Features

• Possibility to create up to 10 galleries
• 10 color variants
• CSS / HTML coding

Fotofolio Photography Template

Fotofolio is a unique custom designed photography portfolio template created for photographers that require a high impact web presence but can be used for any type of artist’s portfolio ( webdesigner, graphic artist, painter etc).

• Tested and working in all major browsers: IE 6 7 8 , Chrome, Firefox 1.5 2 3 3.5, Opera, Safari
• High impact of flash sites without the drawbacks thanks to the many Javascript enhancements:
  1. PNG support
  2. Smooth horizontal scrolling with the mouse wheel and 2 arrows
  3. jQuery ightbox for viewing the fullsize of the photos
  4. Cufon font replacement – chosen font is Aller
  5. jQuery tooltips for photo descriptions
• Degrades gracefully when Javascript is not available
• A working contact form is included that you only need to add your email address to set up!
• Extensive documentation

Focal Photo Gallery Template

Focal is a clean, professional style photo gallery, for photographers wanting to present their shots, or for designers/artists wanting to showcase their portfolio work.

Features

• Valid XHTML /CSS Code
• EXIF data (if available) is automatically pulled from your photos, formatted correctly and displayed (date taken, camera make/model, shutter speed, aperture, focal length, etc.); captions can also be displayed for each photo
• Compatible with all major browsers (IE6, IE7 , IE8, Firefox, Safari, etc.); also includes an optional, user-friendly IE6 warning message (if you choose not to support it)

Famous Photography Template

Famous Photography Template is an html/css template created especially for photographers, digital artists, designers, also perfect for any company or freelancer that want a nice portfolio gallery.

The template is built with a simple look, a thumb gallery slideshow on main page, that is the main focus of this theme, where you can featured your best photos, desings, illustrations etc. A lot of new features you can find in this template like: jquery portofolio gallery slideshow using a quick ajax filter, Cufon titles replacement, fancybox to popup bigger pictures and descriptions, blog page, contact validation form and others.

Premium Photography Template

This premium photography template has lots of features and a clean layout.

Features

1. Valid XHTML & CSS using tableless layout
2. jQuery Contact Form
3. Javascript/PHP validation on form elements with instant success message
4. Drop down menus which also allow for a sub menu for photo sets
5. Custom photo gallery using jQuery
6. Highly commented code making modifications easy
7. Well documented Instructions to walk you through making changes

Modern Photography Portfolio Template

This modern photography template is quite impressive and you have to see the demo to get the full effect of this nice template.  This screenshot is from one of the inner pages but it has a really nice looking homepage.  The jquery it uses makes the transitions really smooth and adds a nice effect.

• Very clean HTML and CSS code.
• Valid XHTML 1 .0 Transitional code.
• Smooth effects for main menu & gallery pages.

Pro Gallery Template

Pro Gallery Website Template is a fixed layout with two columns. This template is best suitable for a all type of showcases, projects portfolio for personal and company websites .

Features a jQuery slider for featured photos sliding.

Boutique HTML Template

Boutique V2 is an easy to setup and customize photography template. Its XHTML and CSS valid and is jquery powered in every aspect and compatible with every major browser.

The galleries are paginated automatically, you just add images in a list.

Pacifica HTML Portfolio Template

This template is a complete website designed from the ground up to function first and foremost as a portfolio, then as a comprehensive website that can be used for just about any site that needs a beautiful layout.

This theme is ideal for artists, designers, photographers, and other creatives that are in need of a portfolio template that is professional and “to the point”. Even if you don’t need the huge image gallery page, this template will also work great for sites that need to showcase a few images above each content-page in a slick, sophisticated way. Here’s what you get with your purchase:

• 6 uniquely styled themes (Classic, Vintage, SkyBlue, Grunge, Desktop, Crimson).
• All Core Page Templates (Home, Content Page, Image Gallery, Blog Post, Services Page, and a Contact Form)
• Highly Organized Code
• jQuery Lightbox
• jQuery Thumbnail Gallery Slider
• jQuery Homepage Slider
• jQuery Subpage Mini-Slider
• Gracefully degrading code (for older browsers)
• All Layout PSD Files
• All Sliced PSD files (for easy re-skinning)
• Favicon Ready (just overwrite the browser icon with your own)

Amazing Portfolio Template

This template is not just a template, it’s fully coded and linked portfolio website, which contains 25 pages. Just edit paths or overwrite images, change some texts and upload.

Features:

• Valid XHTML and CSS
• Code documented and help_me.pdf
• PSD -file included
• Lightbox used to view full size works or photos
• Three (3) different browsing grids for portfolio, pick your own or use all of them
• A working contact form, just change your email address
• Easy customization

FocalPhoto Template

FocalPhoto is a theme that can be used as a photography portfolio. The site is completly coded an it’s very easy to add extra images and categories to the site. Included with the theme is my Image resizer script that will take care of generating thumbnails and crop the images on the fly.

• Sliced version of the website
• PSD included
• Dark and light version
• Completly coded version of the template included
• Image resizer script included for resizing images on the fly
• Ajax navigation
• Custom coded jQuery slideshow
• Graceful degrades when javascript is disabled
• Very easy to configure
• Documentation file + videos

SanFolio Template

Sanfolio is a simple and clean template for photographers to showcase there work.

Template includes:

• Valid html/css
• Layered PSD
• Jquery used for fade in fade out and light box effect

One Page Photography HTML Template

This theme is best suited for a photography and personal portfolio website as well. Template works in all the major browsers, and has massive features to use for your next projects. For most of the part you can just follow the HTML with commented codes. It’s having all the generic layout options and for photography website.

Features:

• Valid XHTML 1 .0 Strict.
• Easy to change unlimited color schemes.
• Well commented and clean CSS / XHTML Files.
• Portfolio Gallery
• Custom Font Replacement (cufon) for 3 heading tags.
• PSD file with perfectly layered and named, if you want to edit an existing Theme or create your own image, PSD File included with names for ease of slicing.
• Compatibility ( IE 7 , IE 8, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome).

Unibox Template

Unibox is a unique and professionally-designed template dedicated for people who love simplicity and want a clean website.  This site template is truly unique and really does give a professional impression.

It comes loaded with unique features and special site-wide visual and navigation effects. It use the jQuery framework along with popular and custom-made plug-ins. Unibox is a one page site template!

• XHTML 1 .0 Transitional
• jQuery Framework
• Scrollable Areas
• Full-featured Image Gallery
• AJAX Contact Form
• Unlimited Color Variations

Unifolio Template

UniFolio Website Template is a clean looking website with light weight code best suited for all type of portfolios, show cases, photographer websites, etc.

It comes with 6 skins along with complete dark color, other colors you can create within seconds by just adding colors in css file.

• Valid XHTML and CSS
• working Ajax PHP Contact Page( you just need to add your email id in contact-us.php )
• Cufon Font for Titles
• superfish multilevel drop down menu
• 2 Column Fixed layout

So there you have it, 17 premium photography website templates.  They aren’t free but they are pretty cheap.  They make a great start to any photography website.

There are many of both free and paid psd website templates out there, so there’s something for all tastes. This list is an example of some of the great content that can be found for free if you know where to look.

Enjoy!

Design Solutions Free PSD Template

Sleek and modern business template. Without doubt a good start for your company website.

Business Template

Another business template. Licensed under the Creative Commons for both personal and commercial use.

Kerimix Designer Portfolio

Very nicely organized psd file with great customization options. Includes home, about me, portfolio and contact pages.

Iphone App Template

Interesting color scheme and a modern professional look.

Environmental PSD Template

Good looking green template that is simple to work with. It isn’t sliced but still a great start for your design.

Midnight Sun PSD Template

Dark and trendy. Notice the side-viewed screens.

Education PSD Template

Educational themed template. Has a colorful, fun international look.

Modern Business Dark PSD Template

A truly gorgeous template. The Html/CSS version of this template has been one of the largest selling ones over at Themeforest. This template is especially good for photographers and designers.

Grunge PSD Template

Great grunge-style template that fits well for designers and graphic artists. Well organized file that is easy to customize.

Sleeko

A single page template that looks modern and stylish. Nicely divided into 4 page blocks.

Cinema

A great start for a cinema or other entertainment-related business. Simple, yet powerful with a nice use of contrast colors (black, white and red).

Crisp Presentation PSD

This earth-toned template is great for many uses with is subtile comfortable look.

Business time

Refreshing, green and unique. If you’re looking for something new and different this could be a great place to start.

Fresh PSD Template

Modern look with an interesting green vs blue color scheme. Versatile and can be used for several different purposes.

Kerix mix web 2.0

Clean, modern and refreshing. Easily customized and can be used for several purposes.

We hope you’ve found some inspiration for your new designs in this list.
Stay tuned for similar posts in the future, and remember to leave a comment to let us know what you think. Thanks!

1. Busy/messy design

The best designed websites have a clear focus.  That means visitors should almost instantaneously know what the purpose of the page is and what action to take.  Adding too many colors, inappropriate or too many fonts, outbound links, confusing graphics etc can confuse visitors and ultimately turn them off.  There is a lot to be said about having clear and clean design.  The saying “Less is more” and the idea that form should follow function is very relevant to website design.

2. Too many images

Using too many images can quickly mean trouble for both loading time and user experience. Unless you’re a photographer or have a business directly related to photography, you should always consider using as few image files as possible. An image or two can be just fine, but the second you start using too many it can be hard for the visitors to separate the information they look for from the visual content.  If you do need to use a lot of images make sure to optimize them for the best look and smallest file size.

3. Bad navigation

One major turn-off to visitors is having a website navigation that is hard to understand or find. Make sure that your website is easy to navigate through and make sure to test it out on others before launch. There are so many websites out there that if someone’s getting frustrated with your navigation they’re likely to leave your website for a similar one.  It’s also important if you’re using javascript type drop down menus that they expand fast.  This is really a pet peeve of mine but if you think about it there is no reason for drop down menus to take a second or more to expand.  I link navigation to be instant and intuitive.

4. Slow-loading page content

You really don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.  And this is so true if you have a slow loading site.  This is pretty much death to any website.  If your site doesn’t load within a few seconds or less visitors click that back button fast.  Check your site’s speed over at Pingdom.  If you find your site loads slow consider moving your site to a fast web host.  Inexpensive shared hosting is usually the culprit behind slow websites.  If you’re on a server with hundreds of other websites you’ll most likely have a slow site.  Again consider getting a better host or going to a dedicated server in a good NOC.  This site used to be hosted by hostgator but I found that the site was loading too slow for my preferences and I figured that it was time to move.  So I went ahead and got a new dedicated server from Zerolag.

It’s also important to note that Google announced that website load times are part of their algorithm for ranking websites.  So fast loading websites are good for SEO.

5. Too many ads

We all have to make money, and sometimes that means putting ads on our websites. If you’re doing so, keep the ads relevant to your website and don’t overcrowd your content. By having a lot of ads for all sorts of companies and services all over the place, you’ll look less professional and in the long run probably make less money and get fewer visitors. Be picky on which ads you’ll allow on your site and try to make dedicated ad-spaces in your layout rather than just throwing ads in different sizes and colors “everywhere”.

If you’re running a professional business there is no reason you should have banners or text link ads on your website period, unless they are for your services.  Don’t send your valuable traffic off to someone else.  Keep your visitors by having them focus solely on your content.

6. Auto-playing content ie. music or video

This goes back to the earliest days of the web when people figured out that they could embed midi songs on their geocities sites… Ack!  Do not do this!  I don’t care if you have a photography website or if you’re a musician.  People sitting at their computers often have their own music or videos playing and don’t need to be bombarded with your favorite song.  It’s invasive and ultra annoying.  It’s surefire way to give people a bad impression from the get-go.  I’ve maybe seen 1 or 2 sites in thousands that have pulled off putting auto-playing music on their sites… and even then it was ambient music that was not loud or obtrusive.

I’ve also seen a number of marketers putting videos on their sites that auto play when loaded.  Again, bad idea.  Even worse is that the videos don’t have player controls so you can’t even stop the videos.  Rest assured I left immediately.

7. Misspellings/Grammar error

Believe it or not grammar is important.  Use spell check always and have someone proofread your content.  It makes a big difference.  Simple as that.

8. SEO trickery

When writing your content forget about search engines.  In the end you have human visitors with brains that can tell pretty fast if you‘re keyword stuffing your copy.  Forget about “sprinkling keywords” throughout your posts to get them to be SEO friendly.  If you’re talking about a certain topic then naturally your copy will contain keywords related to that topic.  Latent Symantec Indexing (LSI) should come naturally and shouldn’t be forced.

Keyword stuffing of any sort should be avoided by all means.  I’ve seen established businesses with a huge amount of white space in their footer only to find that they’ve hidden 300 keywords there and immediately they lose all credibility.  SEO is important to business but there is a natural way to rank for keywords and it doesn’t include trickery of any kind.

9. Irrelevant or low quality content

Content is such a crucial piece of the SEO puzzle.  Yes you need lots of content and the more the better.  But ultimately your content needs to be of high quality because your visitors that matter are human, not bots.  If you create your own content you should be spending a good amount of time writing high quality content.  That includes researching and coming up with quality images that are relevant to your copy.  People love quality content so give them what they want!

If you’re hiring people to write content for you make sure you don’t hire the cheapest writers you can find.  In the end it’s quality that will keep visitors coming back.  And it’s quality content that will get linked to.

10. Flash

I’m still not a fan of flash after all these years.  Not only does it crash browsers but it doesn’t even work on the millions of ipods and ipads out there.  I’ve had my browser crash more times because of flash than any other reason.   For those reasons alone I avoid it, but the worst is that flash isn’t that SEO friendly.  Sure google has made some changes to their bot that allows them to index some flash content but ultimately it’s better to have your website use standard HTML and Javascript to produce flash like effects.

So there you have it… the 10 things you should avoid when creating your website.  Of course there are many other things you should avoid but this list is a good place to start.  Follow these rules and you’ll be off to a good start.

If you’re in the Florida Keys and looking for a great computer repair service company please contact James at J Tech today.

One of the major improvements was that I built the site around wordpress so now they have a fully editable site they can update themselves.  That was something that was important for them as they need the ability to add/remove rentals when necessary.  The site although not looking like a blog does of course have a separate blog section where they can post on a regular basis.  This is important for a few reasons… one it allows them to add fresh news when needed, two, it keeps Google happy in that their site is new content to spider and three it gives website visitors new content to consume and shows that the company is active.

This is what the site looked before…

And below is their redesigned website.

I was lucky enough to work for Bill, as he has since passed away unfortunately, but I learned quite a bit from him and am very proud that I did know him and worked with him on an almost daily basis.  He invented low voltage outdoor lighting as we know it today.  Every other company has copied pretty much the majority of his work and that’s why we have companies like Malibu lighting… and well I can name others but I won’t.

Since it had been many years since I worked at Nightscaping I actually approached them to redesign the site.  I found that the site they had at the time wasn’t doing them justice in many forms, the majority of which was in being SEO friendly.  Their navigation was holding a lot of their content back from being indexed properly.  And they had a lot of issues with html errors.  Not sure if you’re a designer but it can be quite frustrating to surf the web sometimes and see so much that has to be fixed.  So that’s why I contacted them and well, they were on board with my ideas and what I wanted to do.

I actually designed this earlier this year but haven’t had time to blog about it yet.  So here is the finished website:

If you want to see what the site looked like before you can visit the “way back machine” if you want.  I tried posting a screenshot of it but snagit crashed along with firefox so I’m gonna hold off on that.  Anyway, it’s a big improvement and now search engine’s like Google can properly index their content.

Just finished up on the new design of Caterpillarmanuals.com Repromanuals.com. They offer the world’s largest selection of Caterpillar Manuals (Note: domain has changed as well as the logo and design).  They currently offer over 3,000 different Cat manuals to choose from.  They offer Caterpillar parts manuals, service manuals and operator manuals for both new and old Caterpillar tractors.  Along with the new site I designed the logo, box art for the manuals as well as the actual manual covers.  You can see some of them below.

If you’re looking for a Caterpillar manual please visit repromanuals.com.

Some new work I’m doing for Super Deluxe, a live music band based in Charleston, SC.  They’re one of the best Charleston wedding bands around.  But they do more than just weddings, they’re available for any live events and have played around the US and Mexico.  I’ve designed the logo and am currently working on their website.  Should be completed by the end of March.  If you’re in the Charleston SC area and looking for a band for your event give them a call.  Wilton Elder who is on the bottom right in the black sweater is the sax player and the person who initiated the project and I can personally say he’s a Super dude to work with.